Media inquiries: (804) 924-5679

U.VA. CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER RADIOTHON TO SPOTLIGHT SPECIAL PATIENTS DECEMBER 1-3

The University of Virginia Children’s Medical Center (CMC) and Clear Channel Radio will present the first annual CMC Radiothon from Friday, Dec. 1 through Sunday, Dec. 3. Radio stations WCYK 99.7 FM and WUMX 107.5 FM will broadcast the event from Seminole Square and highlight pediatric patients who have made outstanding recoveries thanks to exceptional treatment at U.Va.

One star patient and country music fan who will participate in the Radiothon is Adam Spud Hester. On August 21, Adam was rushed to the U.Va. CMC after a head-on car collision. In a coma, Adam was diagnosed with a frontal lobe brain injury, crushed facial bones, fractured pelvis, and broken feet. It was a parent's worst nightmare, said Theresa Hester, Adam's mother.

Using a high school yearbook photo, U.Va. doctors reconstructed Adam's face and set the other broken bones. But uncertainty remained about possible blindness and brain damage.

The day he showed us he could see was a high point of my life, Hester said. Now he's walking with a cane and expected to make a full recovery, although it might take two years of physical therapy. We call him our walking miracle.

Hester said Adam had about 300 visitors from his high school and church during his stay in the hospital. After four weeks in intensive care, Adam was transferred to the U.Va. Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center (KCRC) for six weeks of physical therapy.

When he returned home to Fishersville, he knew the perfect way to announce his return, Hester said.

In front of his high school, there is a huge rock where the students paint the football team's colors and announcements, she said. The first thing Adam did was to go over there with his dad and paint the words 'I'm back -- this country boy DID survive.' Adam's favorite song is A Country Boy Can Survive, by Hank Williams, Jr., which will be played in his honor during the Radiothon.

Another mother whose son lived thanks to the CMC is Robin Johnson-Bethke. Her son Davis is now a healthy three-year-old, but was born prematurely at 29 weeks. He was a patient in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)for three months. Johnson-Bethke heartily endorses one goal of the Radiothon: to raise funds to expand the NICU space.

There is no place to sleep or have private time with your child except for one of two closet-sized rooms in the NICU, Johnson-Bethke said. When it's crowded, those rooms are always being used for family meetings and breastfeeding.

Besides NICU renovations, Radiothon will raise funds for new research, faculty recruitment and new pediatric programs at the School of Medicine. Funds raised for those areas will be matched 50 cents for every dollar by Dr. Robert M. Carey, dean, School of Medicine and professor of internal medicine at the U.Va. Health System.

November 21, 2000